I ran across this piece at Fast Company and completely agreed with it (reformatted, emphasis mine).
Want a happy employee? Give them an office
New research into employee happiness and office planning confirms what anyone who has worked in an open office knows: Privacy trumps hip design.I know, I know. You just ordered a 50-foot, untreated walnut conference table, and you envision all of your employees filing into work each day, grabbing a seat at random, and coding away as part of a super chill, inter-departmental brainstorming session. The veining underneath all their MacBooks will look glorious. However, a new survey of 1,500 employees by ResumeLab demonstrates that, once again, people prefer working in workspaces that have actual offices—rooms with a door where people can work on their own, in peace.
…This finding is in line with nearly all recent office research. Open offices (and cubicles) may be inexpensive, but research has found they can actually impair productivity and encourage less face-to-face interaction than alternatives. On top of that, they come with an unexpected side of gender inequality: Many women report feeling “on display” and subject to harassment in open offices…Finally, employees reported the highest satisfaction with their personal workspace when it was inside a private office. A whopping 83% of people liked this setup. 83% of people can’t agree on anything in this world! So whatever management tells you, the trendiest office space pales in comparison to an office. But do use a coaster, okay?
I experienced it only once at a start up (that later failed) – one large room and about 15 folks all in a row. Horrible way to keep things moving and concentrate. Most of my career, however, I telecommuted – I picked the room of my house I wanted and set it up. Or I was in the sky / on the road and my “office” was whatever the client gave me for the duration of my visit or it was the hotel room. Earlier in my career, I was in high walled cubicles with a pseudo-door and I appreciated that as I needed to be heads down coding and didn’t want to be disturbed at ALL.
Some of my co-workers in San Diego were eventually moved into what I considered to be small, low cubicles all grouped into a bullpen. They HATED them with a passion. While it was in a space that provided a quick spot to turn their chairs and yak, these folks were on the phones all day long and several had loud voices that made it difficult to hear your own conversation with a client. Having been told earlier on while at a telecom start up that I had a “bull talker” voice, I could understand while private offices SHOULD have been provided – that loud noise permeated all over the floor and affected everyone else that needed quiet to be able to concentrate.
My group out west were moved several times – seemingly the best was a large room where everyone had large cubicles and wide, WIDE spacing between the rows of those open cubes. And then it went downhill from there with every subsequent move: lower, smaller, a “warren” layout – one short stop before sitting at those long tables.
As opposed to being “stimulating / productive environments”, there’s a reason why every picture I see of open offices everyone is wearing headphones: a signal to everyone else to LEAVE ME ALONE!
Offices – used to be a status symbol and I guess in many places, they still are. Companies issue all kinds of productivity tools to their workers – especially knowledge workers. Why has it taken so long for the higher ups to figure out that a quiet office, while expensive, might just be the most productive of all.
Especially for folks, like I get from time to time, that just want to be left alone and not disturbed?
